Who will win VF4?

In Story terms, that is. I think it wont be any of the previous winners, it's gotta be someone else's turn. I vote for Jacky: this time he's got the moves and the motivation : he can't race! His sponsors are being killed! Not just in it to save Sarah (again) this time.

I like Vanessa or Sarah to win as well, but they lose out because of their poor stories ( not that that stopped any of the previous winners ; Akira : "I fight to test my strength!" *yawn*)

The VF storyline, in terms of who wins the tournament, is dictated by who wins a Sega-sponsored VF tournament in Japan... at least historically. I'm not sure which tournament event in particular was chosen in VF1/2/3... but I'm guessing that the VF4 winner (from a storyline perspective) might be Jacky, based on Napoleon winning the official Sega VF4 tournament back in January. (Neo-Tower's Jacky won an earlier tournament too, I think, but I can't remember which one off-hand).

I think Jacky is likely as well, considering he's the only one of the Big Four (Akira, Kage, Jacky, Lau) not to win a tournament yet. His storyline will provide a convenient excuse NOT to change anyone's story for VF5, also a big plus for those lazy guys at AM2. /versus/images/icons/wink.gif Going purely by the story, Lei would be a good idea, but it would force Sega to replace Lau and probably Shun, Tekken-style (i.e. "look! It's not really King, it's his second cousin!")

yeah, i remembered something like that, while i wasn't too sure about them choosing VF2 and VF3 tourney winners like this, i did notice how they chose Lau as VF1's tourney winner because some champ won with him in the japan tourney.

yeah, i'm guessing jacky, lei(although this would jack up the storyline), or akira(he's getting more powerful, so there's a pretty good chance that the winner will be akira). granted, vf's storyline sucks, but at least they're realistic in that it's not like THE main character wins 4 times in a row(if this were sf, then akira would be champ for 3 consecutive times)

hopefully Venessa wont win so that she can have a real reason to be in VF5
it would be nice for lei to win and hopefully do his mission but first he shuld try to be Lau's aprentice then kill the PPPK king

yeah, agree with you there(on the vanessa issue). although, i think if lei wins, sega's just going to create another duplicate of lau, not have lei inherit all of his moves; think of a mid range striker possessing large arrays of sabakis AND a deadly close-in game with good throws...too much, too much.

btw, it just hit me that lion could turn out to be VF4's champion...cause chibita is arguably the world's best VF4 player, and his main character of use is Lion.

well, imo. wolf should have won part 3 because of his dramatic improvment.. but since he did'nt i guess he should win part 4 due to his determination, and judging by his storyline, it seems vital that wolf gets the answers to his dreams by winning the tournament (no more nightmares!!).. i still think kage should not have won the last one by a long shot..

In Story terms, that is. I think it wont be any of the previous winners, it's gotta be someone else's turn. I vote for Jacky: this time he's got the moves and the motivation : he can't race! His sponsors are being killed! Not just in it to save Sarah (again) this time.

I like Vanessa or Sarah to win as well, but they lose out because of their poor stories ( not that that stopped any of the previous winners ; Akira : "I fight to test my strength!" *yawn*)

Well I guess Jeffry is never going to win a tournament based on this information /versus/images/icons/frown.gif BUMMER!, because he tries so hard to catch that damn shark. If that isn't determination to win I don't know what is.

kage should win dammit his momma shoouldnt die becuase of these otha dick suckers want to win for gay ass reasons lau can fight in the next one shun can get replaced blah blah blah but kage should win dammit!!!

Here's something to consider. The most recent big tournament (Zepp Tokyo) was version B. Seems that it would be silly to decide in a winner with a version that has such poor balance, especially considering it was one by one of the characters that was weakened considerably in version C.

Here's my opinon, taking the top six most likely characters to win the tournament and giving the reasons why:

Top six possible winners of the tournament:

Number One: Jacky.

Jacky has one of the few halfway decent stories in the game. He actually has a reason to be going after J6, as they've kidnapped his sister, tried to brainwash her to kill him, and have been murdering his sponsors to keep him from competing in racing tournaments.

This seems like a lot of toruble to go to over an Indy driver, actually... But regardless, Jacky definitely has the best chance of winning VF4. Not only does he have one of the better storyline reasons for doing so, he is one of the most popular characters, and a Jacky player won the big Sega tournament in January.

Balanced or not (and it's VF, Ver. B wasn't as good as later versions, but it was still way more balanced than most fighting games), the fact a Jacky player won the Sega sponsored tournament is a huge extra for him winning the tournament.

Number Two: Lau.

Why, do I say this? One, he's extremely popular, and one of the most powerful characters in the game. Two, and more importantly, even if he doesn't win, I'm 99% certain he'll at least reach the finals for the fourth straight time in the series.

Third, if Lau wins the tournament it gives some of the other characters reasons to come back without any move changes or cast replacements. Lei would try again because he wants to learn Koen Ken, and Pai would try agian because she wants to prove herself to her father.

In all likelihood, though, he probably won't win the whole thing. If he gets to the finals all of the above is taken care of, anyways. But regardless, if Jacky doesn't win, I'd defintely say Lau has the biggest chance, based simply on past performance.

Number Three: Akira.

Storyline? What storyline? He just fights, is all. So, my reason for making him number three? He's Akira. Probably the most consistently powerful character through all of VF4s changes and revisions. An extremely popular character, and a winner of one of the previous tournaments. No real "storyline" reason for him to win, but he doesn't really need one.

Number Four: Kage.

Kage has the best reason of all to win the tournament, saving his mothers life. According to his VF4 biography, he needs the parts from this new Dural to heal his mother. On this note, I'd like to point out the VF series really recycles storylines way too much. Haven't we heard this before? Regardless, as a previous tournament winner and one of the more popular characters Kage is a definite contender.

Number Five: Wolf.

Don't laugh. Yeah, he's had his problems, but he has a legitimate reason to win the tournament, and has been one of the more popular characters in VF4 so far. He's also one of the original characters from the first VF, who always beat the hell out of the new characters.

Number Six: Pai.

Not as likely as the previous five, of course. Still, she has a higher chance than anyone else on the cast, in my opinion. She has an actually legitimate reason to enter the tournament, and if she defeats Lau, you could work all sorts of fascinating story threads into the VF series, instead of the usual 2D cardboard storylines we have to put up with. She's reasonably popular, too. All in all, the five above her have a much better chance, but she's got a better chance than the other nine characters.

Reasons why I didn't choose the other characters:

Sarah: She's unpopular. I rarely, if ever, see anyone playing Sarah. She actually seems to be the most unpopular character in the game, save perhaps Aoi.

She would probably be number six on my list, because she does have a few legitimate reasons for winning the tournament, but she just lacks in popularity too much, IMO.

Jeffry: Jeff will never catch that shark until the VF series ends. Jeff will never be able to win the tournament to get the funds needed to catch that shark. Jeff got the shaft.

Lion: Do I _really_ need to explain this? He'll lose in the first round to Kage again. He doesn't have any interesting storyline reason to win the tournament (admittedly, neither did Akira, but that was Akira), he's an unpopular character, and Chibita never won a major Sega sponsored tournament with him. Plus, he's ghey.

Shun: The old man is comedy relief. He's just looking for his student. If he ever took the tournament seriously, maybe he'd win. But he won't. Pass the sake.

Aoi: Unpopular. A character only recently introduced to the series. No really interesting reason to have her win the tournament, and she doesn't have the popularity needed to warrant ignoring that.

Vanessa: New character, mostly. It'd be fun to see her win, but someone would have to win a major Sega tournament with her to justify that.

Lei Fei: Again, a new character, and actual storyline and gameplay reasons to keep him from winning. If he wins, they have to replace Lau with a completely revamped Lei Fei, and introduce a new Lei Fei clone. Not worth it, and I for one don't want to see the Tekken "clone" process in the VF series.

Brad: Way too new. No storyline reasons to keep him from winning, though.

Goh: Way too new, again. Storyline reasons would dictate he can't win, either, since you'd have to kill off half the opponents he defeated if his biography is accurate.

Well, that's just my opinion on the matter. It would be interesting to see the VF series really develop the storylines it has set up. I think the VF series could have a great storyline if the writers just brought it past the sketch phase and detailed it.